The Effects Of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

As Americans it becomes natural to undermine those with a mental illness. As a fact, many adults and children deal with mental illness each and everyday. There are many stories that have been told to Americans about depression, anxiety, along with bipolar disorders, with the outcome usually being a negative consequence. For the 1 in every 5 citizens that deal with a mental illness each year. Americans have neglected the fact that many adults and children deal with mental issue(s), the citizens that refrain from getting help; their well being can suffer detrimental effects, there is not a lot of awareness either taught in school, or in public perspectives, American’s stigma has perfected their

Statistics state that mental illness is estimated to be higher in blacks than in whites. One of the contributing factors to why blacks aren’t being cared for when they have a mental illness is because of the stigma that mental illness doesn’t exist within the community. According to Plowden (2006), “ African American men often differ in their presentation of depression and are often misdiagnosed. African American men are at greater risk for depression, but they are less likely to participate in mental health care.” This is due to the

This article is a great article that relates to African Americans seeking mental health treatment at lower rates than whites. The article states that this disparity can be attributed to attitudes toward services, alternate coping, and differences in care. This article also illuminates biases in counseling.

A mental illness is one one of many different disorders or conditions that affect one's mood thinking and behavior. Approximately 1 in 5 U.S. adults reports suffering from some form of mental illness. ANd about 20% of us youth are affected by some type of mental illness in their life. African Americans are 20% more likely to report significant mental distress but less likely than white counterparts to seek mental health care. For black people mental illness is surrounded by a stigma of weakness and religious disconnect.

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual is used to diagnosis persons that are getting assessed with mental health disorders. The manual contains criteria the clinician can use to diagnosis a client. If the client meets a certain number of markers then they are given a diagnosis of a particular disorder. But, what if it’s not that easy? For African Americans, there has been a history of getting misdiagnosis by clinicians which has led to some mistrust. The cultural differences between African Americans and their white clinicians can possibly lead to the misdiagnosis of the clients. An article on clinician race states, “African Americans are less likely to be diagnosed with mood disorders and more likely to be be diagnosed with schizophrenia” (Adebimpe, 1981; Neighbors, 1997). Within this review, we will explore research conducted by scholars that examine the relationships between the diagnoses of African Americans by White Clinicians.

Health care for mental illness is an issue in the African American community for Men, Women and Adolescents due to the underserving and lack of mental healthcare providers, the cultural stigma of having mental illness and

Per Vaterlaus, Skogrand, & Chaney (2015) studies have shown that African Americans reaching out for mental health services are perceived to be powerless or weak, and are often humiliated and feel embarrassed. In a study performed by (Ward, Wiltshire, Detry & Brown (2013) African Americans were found to be hesitant to confess any mental health problems and were more likely to cope using religious practices. In my opinion, African Americans are connected to

The lack of mental health care services for minorities is a long-standing problem in the United States. The first time the issue received attention was in 1985, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report that described serious health discrepancies that minority populations were enduring. In 1986, because of this report, the Office of Minority Health was formed to assist in the reduction of the health care shortages for

Psychiatry and psychology have struggled in the past to contextualize the nature of mental illness. Through this struggle, mental illnesses and their symptoms have been used as a means of controlling deviance and pathologizing emotions felt by certain groups of people. Social, political, and historical factors create the boundaries of sanity and insanity in which hegemonic, institutional power control minority groups, however, the manner in which these boundaries manifest have shifted over time. Jonathan Metzl in his book The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease explores the manner in which mental illness is used by institutions to control deviance through his examination of how the anti-psychiatry movement, subsequence

When experiencing a mental illness, African Americans face obstacles “related to understanding the problem or situation and limitation in awareness of possible solutions, strategies remedies and resources” (Hines-Martin, Malone, Kim, & Brown-Piper, 2003). In a study by Hines-Martin (2003), participants verbalized that they did not think they were “crazy” and therefore did not need mental health services. In this instance participants showed a lack of knowledge about what mental health illness looks like. They identified mental illness as dichotomous states (Hines-Martin et al., 2003). A study by Mental Health America found similar results. In this study, a majority of African Americans surveyed believed that depression was a “health problem” and in some cases “normal” (MHA, 2012). Talking about mental illness is taboo for African Americans, and as a result they possess little knowledge about specific mental health problems or available treatments (Alvidrez et al., 2008). For African Americans, stigma serves as an impediment to problem recognition. Because they have a misconstrued idea of what mental illness is, they are less likely to contemplate that they have such problems. Alvidrez (2008) found that stigma prevented 65% of their survey respondents from contemplating that they had such problems. Because many African Americans are uninformed about what mental illness is and how it

Conversations regarding mental health can often be a difficult topic to discuss openly. The Huffington Post provided readers with the opportunity to understand mental illness and intersectionality in the article, 4 Black Women Writers Get Honest About Mental Illness and Race. This article provides a different perspective on mental health as it looks at mental illness through the intersectionality of race and gender. In the article, four black women participate in an interview to discuss their experience with depression, bi-polar disorder, and ADHD and how it affects their lives as both black and woman identified beings. Discussions of mental health in the black community are rare as there is a negative view of mental illness. Hearing

People who suffered from Confederate slavery have different thoughts of the flag than southerners. Southerners celebrate their Confederate ancestors but for people like African Americans who have suffered from racial injustice and slavery see these monuments and symbols as the horror and painful memories of their ancestors in slavery. African Americans mostly deal with some form of racism in their life time. acts of racism can lead to post traumatic stress disorder. A definition by Google says "A condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant vivid recall experience, with dulled responses of others and the outside world". PTSD

All RES on African Americans is damaging, each individual is affected differently and to place emphasize on one effect or another seems invalidating. People continue to feel hopeless and powerless and feel that prejudice, discrimination and inequity are things they must accept. One, black or white, is taught to not speak up about prejudice, discrimination and inequity which then leads to resentment, shame and self blame. And it is this never ending cycle then leads to isolation, self-destructive behaviors, suicide to name a few.

In the video on post traumatic slave disorder a professor name Dr. Leary held a workshop to speak about post traumatic slave disorder. In the video she touched on very important key points that the audience that was at the workshop needed to be aware of. These key points included the pathology of race, cognitive dissonance, the intergenerational impact of slavery on African-Americans, rape during slavery, her experience of being embraced in South Africa, the perspective on learned helpness, and the elephant, the dynamics of male and female relationships within the context of slavery and modern times, how media plays a role in pot traumatic slave disorder, and how blacks cope with post traumatic slave disorder. All of these key points were important for the audience to understand so that they can see why they cannot just sweep the issue underneath a rug. Many African Americans that were slaves who endured slavery still have to remebe4r all of the torture they dealt with. Even African Americans who were not there still have some type of post traumatic slave disorder that can be brought on when certain incidents in the world occur such as 9/11. Dr. Leary in this video wanted to make sure that everyone in the audience knew what was going on.

many disheartening things that don’t make it to our textbooks in any of our past educational levels.